Its Christmas Eve - time for another giveaway! (US Profiles ONLY)

Hello everyone. Hopefully you are all settled in for the night and have left milk and cookies for the big guy. Don't eat them on him! He knows if you've been naughty or nice

Considering the season, I think what everyone needs is a reason for holiday cheer. A few lucky TAers have snagged themselves a few early presents and I'd like to offer another.

The first gamer to spell the phrase Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night using the 1st character of freshly unlocked achievements and meet the following requirements will win a download code for Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons- This is open to US profiles only. Sorry, its due to the MS gifting program being limited to the region of the person gifting.- The achievements must all be earned online and be timestamped after this post was made.- Special characters are exactly that, special. Unfortunately we want boring and bland letters here. No umlauts allowed.- This version of the game must not already be on your gamertag (feel free to give this a go if you've got the x360 version though.)- The achievements can be earned in any order with any amount of non-valid achievements won in-between.- Make a comment linking the achievements used. If you are unaware of how to do this - copy/paste the URL of the achievement directly and it will display like this:

Posted by planting42 on 25 December 17 at 04:39
| Last edited on 25 December 17 at 04:39 | There are 5 comments on this blog post - Please log in to comment on this blog.

Dec19

Elite: Dangerous giveaway challenge! - won by SprinkyDink

As two lucky TAers know, I've been celebrating Christmas a bit early by giving away games to folks that can beat a spelling challenge quickly. Its time for another one!

I'm sure if you know me at all, you know I'm a big fan of the game Elite: Dangerous. Well, its on sale now which means its even easier for me to help a new Pilot plot their course through the Milky Way galaxy.

Due to how gifting works, this is limited to US Xbox profile holders only. I know, its a bummer. Hopefully there's another Santa out there in your region that loves space ships too.

So, here's the deal. I'll gift the base game (which will keep you occupied for quite some time) to the first gamer to complete the challenge below. The Season Pass is also on sale right now if you desire the whole deal - but for someone starting out, the base game offers quite a lot. You will probably want some time under your belt before trying landing on a planet anyways...

The 'Elite' Challenge:

Be the first to post a comment below that meets the following conditions:- You must spell the phrase 'Milky Way Galaxy' using the 1st character of freshly unlocked achievements. Special characters are just that, special. Using them will invalidate the entry. Sorry, no ümlauts here.- All achievements must be timestamped. This way I can see they were earned after this post was made. If they are timestamped before this blog was first posted, they are invalid. (Yes, I edit things a lot)- Elite: Dangerous must not be on your gamertag.- The achievements can be earned in any order and it doesn't matter if you earn others while working on this challenge. - Make a comment linking the achievements used. If you are unaware of how to do this - copy/paste the URL of the achievement directly and it will display like this:

The first person (with a US profile) to complete the challenge will be gifted a code for Elite: Dangerous

This challenge ends in 5 days. Make sure to finish your spelling by the 23rd at this time!

Posted by planting42 on 19 December 17 at 03:36
| Last edited on 19 December 17 at 08:32 | There are 9 comments on this blog post - Please log in to comment on this blog.

Dec12

GTASC 2017 - Finals

The one week we wait all year for has happened. Insane scoring efforts from all involved. There was quite a good fight on the Solo side and the Team side showed quite an impressive showing from all the finalists. In the end, JimbotUK from Is This Team UHH? took home the Solo crown and his efforts surely contributed to Is This Team UHH? taking home the Team crown. Let's take a few moments to chat with the Overachievers from Period 47 and this years Champions - Is This Team UHH? as well as look at the stats for Period 48 and the overall event,

PERIOD 47 OVERACHIEVER INTERVIEWS:

Given they were asked these questions during the Finals, its no surprise not all had the time to answer. Here's 3 members of English Warriors who topped the board in the Semi-Final round.

1) Did you play anything memorable this last period?boldyno1: Last period was such a blur that nothing really stands out I'm afraid. Quick points after quick points.Effigy: I mainly played quick 1k's last week so most of them were pretty terrible, although there were a few gems amongst them. I really enjoyed What Remains of Edith Finch and Blackwood Crossing, and Monkey King Saga was also quite fun. Being able to play without a guide and pop at least one achievement after every (very short) level is great!JJBDude48: Have to give a shout out to Maka91 as I spent plenty of hours listening to his voice whilst following his 100% achievement walkthrough playlist on YouTube. Couple of others have videos on there too which are good. Playing Your Toy made me very tense when I was running away from the killer bear. Even though the game overall isn't great the memory of that bear will stay with me forever lol. I think Black The Fall was the best game I played but also enjoyed Abzu a lot too.

2) What pushed you to the top of the leaderboard last period?boldyno1: Our aim was to make the final and finishing top probably never entered our minds. 4 of the team were available on the Sunday and 2 of them were still in solo comp so needed to score to qualify for solo finals, so we ended up in first place..Effigy: Just wanting to make sure we survived until the final really. We weren't planning on winning the period, but we planned to go for 150k at the start of the week (30k each) as we thought that'd probably be enough for finals. Adding in a last minute push by JJB and Bemused to reach the solo finals got us past the other teams.JJBDude48: It was never the plan but we needed to make it to the finals and were aware there were other teams wanting to battle us for that last slot. I would have been more than happy to use our bonuses to stay in but we ended up being able to save them as we all scored very well. Having me and BemusedBox fighting to stay in solo comp too is what gave us the overall push to get 1st as we both had to drop a ton of points in last couple of hours to make it through.

3) What is the meaning behind your gamertag?boldyno1: My original tag I signed up to Xbox with. As I kid I used to shave my hair all the team so got called boldy and for some reason I added no1 to it and that's the boring story (btw I no longer shave my hair)Effigy: Most people probably know what an effigy is. When old gamertags were being re-released I wanted a unique gamertag and just ended up settling on this. Any Runescape fans may also know what an effigy is on there. JJBDude48: My name is Jason which means people often refer to me as Jay or sometimes even Jay Jay. There was a kid at primary school who took it even further once and started calling me JJB (named after the sports shop JJB Sports). When I became a bit older and started going on the internet I had to create a username and for whatever reason at age 12 I wasn't very creative and decided to put Dude after JJB.

The 48 is a random number because I got confused with how accounts work when the Xbox 360 released. Before it launched I created the gamertag on Xbox.com but when it came to downloading profile to the 360 I got all confused. Think I was trying to create the account again instead of using download option. Either way I got fed up of trying and decided to just make another one with 48 on the end.

4) Looking back at the events of the year of gaming, do you have any memories you care to share?boldyno1: Biggest one for me is the team spirit we have showed. We were finalists last year and added Effigy this year and he has fitted in well. The party chat is great fun and we just motivate each other and everyone brings something different to the table.Effigy: No one specific time, but just being in a party with the team, discussing tactics, playing shit games and joking around. It's a great experience and a pretty unique one when it comes to gaming.JJBDude48: I'll mention that I was really enjoying playing Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien back in the summer and was looking forward to completing it. I had to nail it on the head though as couldn't justify putting anymore time in to it whilst also focusing on GTASC. Looking forward to going back to it. Also finally got to try out Japanese visual novels this year after wanting to get my hands on some of them for many of years. Oh and playing Micro Machines World Series at launch enjoying the race between a few gamers to get first completion. I never did finish it but BemusedBox came from behind and got 1st which was great as the amount of TA he scored gave us all an easy week in GTASC lol.

5) How would you describe your gaming setup? Feel free to share an image.boldyno1: 40 inch telly, Xbox one with 2 hard drives hooked up, Xbox 360 & a Japanese Xbox 360 all sitting next to each other.Effigy: Currently with the craziness of GTASC I've moved things around a bit. I have a 360 and my old One connected to my Acer XR341CK in the front room to play them both at the same time when needed. I live with my best friend and his girlfriend who both game so they both have a One and a TV set up in there too. In my room I have my (currently broken) One X Scorpio Edition and a 55" LG B7. If I remember before reset I'll upload some pictures!JJBDude48:

Well I have a gaming room I ought to use really but before I get to that I'll mention where I've been spending majority of my time the past few weeks, in the living room. Xbox One is down here and I swap out the 360 if I need to play on American or Jap box. The TV is a 49 inch Toshiba I believe and there's a Sony sound bar below it which is nice to put on sometimes. Often I've streamed the Xbox One to my laptop so I could play 360 on TV at same time Recently this worked well as I played both the Goosebumps games side by side.

I also have this tablet which is handy as it allows me to stream from my sons Xbox One in his bedroom if I want to double box. Streams really well and can even play Win 10 games, very impressed with it!

What you see above there is my games room which has been neglected a lot. I got it set up so I could double box lots of things but getting Wi-Fi in there was a pain and I suppose as times gone on I've preferred to game on the Xbox One which is downstairs. I've used the room when we have guests round but that doesn't happen too often. There's a 42 inch TV in there (needs to go on wall) with a 360 hooked up to it and a 19 inch TV with another 360 and Kinect. A desktop too which I haven't used in ages now.

Thought I might as well show off the physical 360 collection that I racked up over the years. It needs another sorting out (no time in GTASC lol) but thankfully I don't add to the collection too much anymore. Too busy playing the influx of ID @ Xbox games we get now on the One.

6) Do you have any plans for next year given it will entail teams of two?boldyno1: No plans to enter next year. Said I wasn't going to enter this year but got roped into it so definitely plan on taking a break next year as two man teams doesn't appeal to meEffigy: Skip it, relax, and catch up on all the great games I've installed and not yet had a chance to play - teams of 2 doesn't really appeal to me sadly!JJBDude48: Don't think any of us want to take part next year, getting to the finals 2 years in a row has taken a lot out of us and we wont have enough in us to compete seriously again. I am considering doing the solo competition but doubt I'll be able to make the final again.

7) Is there anything else you'd like to add?boldyno1: The GTASC winners should be known by now so well done to whomever team that is, you have certainly smashed it big style this year. Big thanks to my team, we have went under the radar all year, keeping quiet and plugging along and have certainly proved a lot of people wrong with making the final. Been a pleasure to game with these lads and the friendship we have made.Effigy: At the time of sending this reply it's Friday night in the UK and the scoring in the finals is just insane. Really well done to everyone involved, I never expected quite such high numbers. After floating under the radar all year and being left out of everyones power rankings and picks to reach the finals, let's see if we can make a push and finish this week somewhere other than 5th place. :)JJBDude48: Great to see us prove so many people wrong and make it to the finals two years in a row. All the power rankings I've seen all year didn't feature us getting far and yet here we are in the finals with the only team to also feature 2 members in the solo comp too. We accepted that we're underdogs and used that to our advantage to stay under the radar which has worked well thus far. It's going to be one heck of a finals and I give my sincere congratulations to whoever wins it.

GTASC 2017 WINNER INTERVIEWS:

We've got 4 members of Is This Team UHH? along to share their thoughts of the win. Congratulations for all your hard work!

1) Did you play anything memorable this past period?AxDEMONxWITHIN: Slinging sheep in the air or killing them with lightning. My week was no where near as blurry as my team mates so I unfortunately remember every game I played. DANIELJJ14: While I wasn’t on many games for long apart from ClusterTruck being a bastard to complete, I guess I’ll give shoutouts to my biggest/favourite preloads.Giana Sisters, Chariot, Trackmania Turbo, I am Bread, Crossout and Tokyo 42.The last of which I only started in the week before semis but it is a very good game, it’s kind of a cross between Fez and Hotline Miami. Lots of fun, unique gameplay great art style.Oh and of course lots of Minecraft, which was more fun than I was expecting.Infamous: The final week was more like the opposite of a bean dive than actually playing any games for me, since I like my ratio too much I had to rely primarily on preloads and minecraft for my scoring, thankfully though Dead Rising 4 and Gears 4 both got some juicy title updates during the final which gave me something to play for fast easy points, not sure if it was smart since the decay set in pretty quick but in the end it was enough. Was glad to finally finish off some of those preloads though, mainly Trove which put me at #1 for the MMO TA leaderboard, Pac-Man CE2 which was my first preload and pretty much everything else.. it was a crazy week!JimbotUK: I earned an achievement in 170 games from last week so definitely a blur to say the least. Relearning how to play Clustertruck, Speedrunners and Thumper was a lot of fun and it felt pretty good to pull out the completions on those games. Of course Avatar and Fallout 3 PC, some highly involved gameplay to snag all the achievements there. Had a really fun boosting session doing the battle modes on Minecraft, shoutout to Weredog51 for helping us with that. Paladin is a fun little game if you are looking for quick gamerscore. The Neogeo fighting games were memorable for all the wrong reasons, safe to say I can’t see myself returning to those.Triple Triad777: Oh man...what didn't I play. I was on sooo many games that I lost track of what I played. I can tell you that the ones I am most proud of is Crimson Dragon and Gears 4.

2) How much effort would you say you put into the planning and execution of this win?AxDEMONxWITHIN: I had 0 to do with planning. The goal in the beginning was preload, preload, and preload some more. About three weeks in I realized my love for preloading amounted to a big fat goose egg. I preferred to just put points up, so my team gave me the freedom to do just that. From that point my goal was to try and put up enough points to allow the others time to preload. DANIELJJ14: A gargantuan, monumental, extraordinary, universal (any other words that would mean a large quantity) amount of effort.We had spreadsheets tracking preloads, (my personal one https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n5QwTtButk9JRU2XNPgn...), team chat on discord, links to good guides we’d found to help each other out. A bit of networking too for game sessions.I was never going as far as to planning weekly schedules of what to play though, just totally winging it in that department, playing games, scoring and seeing where the good points to stop at were.Infamous: Lotsss, every week we were always looking for opportunities for extra ways to score, watching what other teams were doing, looking for bonuses we might grab, preloading and updating spreadsheets ect, there was never a week where nothing happened, planning for the final really was a yearlong thing and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Admittedly I think a lot of the planning on our team fell onto Jim but he picked it up like a champ and kept on going, we all had ideas/strategies/plans which led to the win though.JimbotUK: We had a really active discord channel going. Constantly discussing the badges, bonuses and which games were good to preload. We also had a shared spreadsheet on GDrive to track preloads and bonuses which really helped. Mainly just a ton of time throughout the whole year put into prepping games ready for finals.Triple Triad777: Jim and Dan led the charge on the planning front, Infamous and I just followed along and did what they said. However, throughout the year, we kept in constant contact through a group chat and in parties. In these chats, we gave each other ideas on different games we could preload. Here are some examples: Infamous preloaded Tokyo 42, Dan followed suit, I preloaded Ark, Jim and Dan followed, and the best of them all Dan preloaded Giana Sisters, Jim and I followed along. Just small tips like this allowed us to just keep amassing various preloads. One final thing that allowed us to execute this win was Demon's ability to score all throughout the year. Her high scoring gave us four the ability to spend time on these preloads. There was no way we would have been able to pull out the win without her.

3) How did you keep yourself focused on the goal of 1st place?AxDEMONxWITHIN: I saw every week as its own competition. Every week offered a new reward or bonus. Yes you play to win in the long run but I kept my mind in the week we were in. Maybe because I don't preload I saw it that way. Plus I set personal goals such as so much ta or gs by this date to help push myself. DANIELJJ14: It was pretty tricky because throughout the contest strategies shifted from time to time, mainly just trying for all the bonuses that came up unless circumstances screwed us, and the badge chase shenanigans throughout the year was an interesting one.Jim and Infamous going toe to toe in leapfrog until only they remained pulled us a few grinder badges.

We definitely had our fair share of getting involved with overachiever but it reached a point probably in the last 10-12 weeks where I said to the team, it doesn’t matter if other teams are stacking badges if we are preloading 8k or more each week and scoring 10, 20 even 30k less than the teams fighting for them. This being my clinching argument:

Infamous: Staying focused was never really an issue thanks to the forum, there was always someone in there running their mouth and it suddenly becomes very easy to want to beat them, on top of that we all had some crazy goals for the year, my personal goals were to hit a ratio of 3.1 and have a nice juicy 100k preloaded for the finals, fell short a bit on both but still feels like a win!JimbotUK: Personally my goal was to score over 150000 and set the new record for score in a week, my focus was just slowly working towards that. As a team we weren’t really sure if we had done enough to win right up until the end but we just wanted to do the best we could to put the other teams to the test.Triple Triad777: It was hard to stay motivated for the entire year. Although towards the end it became a lot easier since the thought of finally being able to let go of everything I have been holding onto came into view. Also, it was hard not to be motivated when you had Jim and Dan constantly on your case about not doing enough (jokingly of course)

4) Looking back at the entire event, are there any memories that stand out - good times you'd care to share?AxDEMONxWITHIN: I had the opportunity to make friends with people on opposing teams. I know it sounds silly but with so many competitive people in this competition to have an opponent offer you a hand or to be able to help them out as well was great. DANIELJJ14: Other than the glorious preload dump that finals brought, I’d have to say that period 19 or Phantom Dust week was a personal favourite of mine. Our English trio of Infamous, Jim and I dropping a combined 30k on the heavily inflated, free, new release in the last hour to end the tyrannical reign of the Gankers on the overachiever streak.I think that was when we lost our underdog status and people started to take notice.

The following week was a real bugger, fighting an insane amount of decay for the freest that was easy badge of the contest. Have you ever seen a team sore 22,000 gamerscore yet still have less TA?

Also I’ll never forget this stupid game clip that even somehow shows the achievement popping, which it never normally does with Xbox clips, and I didn’t technically fulfil the requirements.

Infamous: Every week had it’s moments but the overachiever weeks were where it all picked up and the ideas started to flow, the final few weeks were pretty tense too watching cutoff like a hawk every Sunday, I’ll be glad to never do that again lol. And the final showdown of preload popping chaos, seeing all those points get scanned in one after the other was amazing. Overall it’s been a great year and couldn’t have picked a better group of people to play with!JimbotUK: The six overachiever badges we picked up were all good fun pushing for them. The one that stands out was speedrunning through Phantom Dust in the two days after it came out along with Dan and Infamous. Dropping 20000 between us just before cutoff to take the win was awesome and I think that was the moment we felt like we could be a top team.Triple Triad777: Ah there are so many good times with my team....first off, Demon and I had a grand time setting up 32 profiles to get this achievement

it took so long trying to get it set up....it was a great time. Another time, she needed a hand with Risk: Urban Assault, that was a good time as well.Next, Infamous and I had a great time going through Gears 4 on Ironman mode. So much fun during the lightning section, either he would get fried or I would. We were planning on going through to get the achievement for not using a lancer or gnasher, but we didn't get around to it. It was still a great time.Finally Jim and Dan...they are basically a package deal. You can't get one without the other. We did quite a few miscellaneous achievements, but spent almost everyday in a party. I'm sure they are sick of me, but I know I had a great time . We had such a great time analyzing other teams and ideas. One funny thing was when one of my "acquaintances" joined the party and was talking about a whole bunch of crap. As soon as he left, we couldn't help but laugh at all the bull he had said. One final moment that was funny (but tragic) was when Demon had the hurricane in Florida. We were making jokes about how she was sitting in her living room, in a canoe, while playing Xbox, with her kids sitting with paddles in hand. I know this is kinda bad, but it was funny at the time...

5) What would you tell someone looking to make a run for it all next year?AxDEMONxWITHIN: DON'T!!!.... nah I'm just kidding. Plan and then plan some more. Oh and set up a savings account for the shear # of games you are gonna buy. On the team side of things I would have to say it takes a well rounded group. DANIELJJ14: Preload, preload and preload some more. Any game where you can pickup anywhere between a few hundred and a thousand points in a matter of minutes, get it preloaded. Sure Giana Sisters was great because you can setup 10k to pop in about 10 minutes but it takes about 30-40 hours of skilled platforming to get it done.

However I think George Harrison says it best when it comes to setting your mind on winning a GTASC.

Infamous: Stay calm and preload.JimbotUK: Do the maths! If you are looking at getting into the preloading craziness with the goal of placing well you want to be getting good return on your time investment. If you are spending much more than 8 hours for 1k of preload there is probably better stuff you could be playing. Some interesting examples being Abzu, Tacoma, Among The Sleep which I don’t think people typically think of as great preload games but make sure to look at lists closely. On the flipside of that try and stick to games you enjoy playing as much as possible, otherwise it will get miserable if you are pushing yourself through stuff for the sake of the contest. Also take good notes, when you come back to these games you are on the clock. You are going to want as much information possible to pull out the last few achievements quickly and don’t expect to remember where that last collectible was from 9 months ago. Above all else just have fun!Triple Triad777: Preload. Preload as much as possible. Look for different opportunities in anything. My thoughts for next year are to do one of two things: First, get a team where either 1 member scores throughout the year, and the other preloads for the entire year. Or have a team that you split up the work, both preloading and both scoring. I for one am retiring from GTASC for now, but might make an appearance in a few years.If one thing has been made clear, don't bother going for the overachiever or achieveaholics bonuses. This has been quite clear as V&D lost despite having 140k in bonuses. You can accomplish a lot more just by preloading and not worrying about bonuses.

6) How does it feel wearing the crown for 2017?AxDEMONxWITHIN: It feels like I am one lucky chic! My team was all ready formed when I finally decided to enter the competition. None of them knew me and it was by luck that one of their team mates backed out leaving an open spot. Not only are they a great group of guys they are all amazing gamers. So again I say it makes me feel lucky.DANIELJJ14: Competing in GTASC, is kinda like climbing up the Great Wall of China.It’s a fucking struggle but once you reach the top it’s amazing and it makes the effort all worthwhile.https://imgur.com/gallery/RIXWnInfamous: Feels great, mostly just glad it’s over though lmao, the fatigue was really starting to set in towards the end since I pushed myself pretty hard in November (must’ve preloaded atleast 30-40k on top of regular scoring..) and I ended up sleeping for about 32 hours over the final 2 days, don’t think I could’ve kept going for much longer. So yeah, mostly just glad I can finally sleep like a normal human being again. xDJimbotUK: We did it once and we did it right, feels pretty sweet. Will definitely be taking a break from achievement contests going into the new year including GTASC. Will be following along though, if anyone can beat the 192640 I will consider returning.Triple Triad777: It feels quite good, a lot of time was put into this. But I know for a fact that I wouldn't be here without my team. I want to thank my team for the great ride. I love my teammates, couldn't have asked for a better group.

7) Is there anything else you'd like to add?AxDEMONxWITHIN: I am very much so looking forward to a more relaxed 2018.DANIELJJ14: Thanks to my teammates for the great supportThanks to Planting for running the contest and putting up with lots of shit.Thanks to other teams for the competition.Thanks to Saber One for the panic attacks.Thanks to Sun Tzu for the inspiration https://imgur.com/gallery/PqIhAIt’s been great fun, thanks to all involved.Infamous: Bring on GTASC 2018!!!Just kidding.. I think I’ll stick to leapfrog from now on haha. Thanks to my team for having me and Planting for running this contest every year, it’s been a lot of fun. JimbotUK: Thanks to Planting for running such a fun competition it definitely had me addicted. Thank you to everyone behind the TrueAchievements website in general, definitely takes Xbox gaming to the next level. Congrats to all the teams that made deep runs, Godz and English Warriors for taking second and third. Credit to Deathisland for pushing me so hard in solo and of course to RedmptionDenied for putting up these silly scores year in year out. Shoutout to Killers of Unicorn Killers for being awesome particularly STAGGER LEE for all the laughs this year. Thank you to all the people who sent messages of support. Most of all thanks to my team for the great year of gaming!Triple Triad777: I made a few promises to some others, so here they are. This one is for my boys Nitrous Speed and Sweet Steve Nash.

Want to give a shout out to my friends over at "The Original Backloggers"- Smarty and Danwood. I wouldn't be here without those two. One final shout out to O EcLiipzE, Mr Granstaff, and Stagger Lee. They gave me motivation the final week to try to keep scoring. I also want to give my deepest sympathies to the Gankers. I believe they would have had a deep run, but due to the circumstances, they missed out on the opportunity. They did an impressive job and they should be quite proud of how they did. V&D did an impressive job, but due to some miscalculations and overconfidence, they ended up a lot lower they we thought they would. English Warriors did an amazing job, way to go on that late push to 3rd! Godz, you guys did a stellar job. Way better than I anticipated, I definitely misjudged you guys way too early. All in all, I want to thank Planting and TA for holding this contest. Thanks to my team for the last time. I hope all the best for everyone participating next year, I will enjoy watching it from the sidelines. Peace out!

Here's the final chart that shows TA and GS earned each period. You can certainly see the insanity ramp up for the end:

TOP 3 INDIVIDUALS:JimbotUK with 192,640 TA, 87,192 GS and a total of 1,389 achievements.DeAtHisLaNd with 181,822 TA, 98,079 GS and a total of 1,943 achievements.RedmptionDenied with 141,081 TA, 80,500 GS and a total of 1,195 achievements.

Here's the final chart that shows TA and GS earned each period. These guys really knocked it out of the park for the end of this contest:

TOP 3 INDIVIDUALS:JimbotUK with 192,640 TA, 87,192 GS and a total of 1,389 achievements.DeAtHisLaNd with 181,822 TA, 98,079 GS and a total of 1,943 achievements.DANIELJJ14 with 136,011 TA, 38,352 GS and a total of 686 achievements.

A big congratulations to all those that made it to the finals this year. Both contests had some great action I'm sure those watching at home appreciated. This is by far the most TrueAchievement score, Gamerscore and Achievements won ever!

Stay tuned for the announcement for next year. There will be several changes that you may or not be aware of. - Team size will be 2 members- The rollover time will be 4PM GMT (11AM Eastern - 8AM Pacific)- Periods start / end on Wednesday- The TA tenure requirement will be waived this year. As long as you have 20,000GS or more, you can join.

Not only will the change in day offer an olive branch for those that work weekends and have been dealing with horrible period end times for years... it fits much better with my current work schedule. Being I have to be around to handle bonus PMs - its pretty important

See you all in 2018!

Posted by planting42 on 12 December 17 at 23:37
| Last edited on 13 December 17 at 01:51 | There are 18 comments on this blog post - Please log in to comment on this blog.

Dec06

GTASC 2017 - Period 47

Hello and good evening! Its that time of the week when we look back at the stats of the previous period, check in on the Games With Gold as well as currently running TA events and of course - chat with the Overachievers of the previous period. Without further ado - here's GTASC 2017 - Semi-Final edition!

We've started a new month and Assassin's Creed Origins has won the right to be the new playlist game. Here's hoping those microtransactions aren't too intrusive. Just a few days in, here's what we've accomplished as a community:

Interestingly enough, this has more gamers participating already than we did for last month's game. We're nearing the achievements unlocked tally as well but are well sitting at around 25% the GS and TA earned. This has the potential to be the best game for stats yet! Well - excluding completion perhaps - Turing Test will likely keep that honor for some time.

Don't forget to register for the Twelve Days of Christmas Challenge if you haven't already. Each day for 12 days starting December 1st a new challenge will be revealed. Use all the achievements at your disposal to accomplish each task and you'll earn the new Community Challenge badge (or increment the one you got for completing the Alphabet Challenge.) Never fear, although the number 12 features prominently in this event (thanks to a particular song of course...) you have the entire month to complete all 12 challenges. You must complete them in order and all achievements must be timestamped.

No new winners. Chances are this will be the end of this until next year.

PERIOD 45 OVERACHIEVER INTERVIEWS:

Its madness and quite understandable that we only have 2 members of The Godz Reborn to join the Solo Overachiever Yinga Garten with us today.

1) Did you play anything memorable this past period?JORAX: C.U.B.E. and ChromaGun were pretty fun, though can't hold a candle to Portal 1 & 2.Ow Nitram: Only quality titles like Road Rage, nothing memorable, SPIFFING wasn’t bad though. I played the latest release in visual novel, OCCULTIC;NINE : that wasn’t really good.Yinga Garten: Sadly memorable for all the wrong reasons was Pixel Piracy, a game so fundamentally broken that after a while you'll be reduced to navigating the map at less than 1fps (just check out the clip I recorded of it). Its a real shame because it could have been an okay game without its awful technical problems, managed to get the completion though despite great difficulty. Going back to Clustertruck was great fun though, so frustrating yet has its moments of absolute brilliance which make it a pleasure to play.

2) What if anything would you change about the GTASC format?JORAX: Overall the contest seems solid as far as rules and format. Sometimes it seemed like the rules were enforced a bit... harshly :). Easy for me to say from here, though (and thankfully never impacted my team).Ow Nitram: Double the “bonus value” 2000 to 4000. It’s disappointing that the two teams competing for OVERACHIEVER and ACHIEAVOLICS and making thing more interesting week after week didn’t get a better reward in the end.Yinga Garten: Generally I'm fine with the format but I'd prefer less of the weekly stackable bonuses as I'm more of a person that prefers pure scoring. This is my first year of competing in the competition and looking back at previous years the cut-off formula was a lot less brutal than it is now so that needs to remain the same, makes the contest more engaging throughout the year.

3) What has driven you to this point in the contest? Why do you compete?JORAX: I've always liked GamerScore anyhow, and after a disappointing run in GTASC last year my teammates convinced me that with some planning and an actual strategy, we had a real shot to win this time around. As a competitive fellow, the idea of planning and gaming for the entire year with an objective to win something like this sounded like a lot of fun!Ow Nitram: I was mostly driven by my goal of reaching 1 million gamerscore and the support of my team across the year. As for competing, the thrill I guess? It’s also probably my last time playing THAT big and making a good run (a lot of things happens when you have a career and I’d rather play good games than the trash on my hard drive sometimes), might be aiming for the top in this case. Yinga Garten: I committed to going far in solo a few months back as I felt I wouldn't get much further with my team as we had many weeks where we clutched out of the elimination zone. However I was proved wrong and my scoring in solo was part of the reason why my team got to the semi-finals which I wasn't expecting at all back when I made my decision to go far in solo. I just have a competitive nature really, I've done well in previous contests on this site such as Leap Frog but GTASC seems like the ultimate one to me.

4) Do you think you still have enough left to make a top showing in the finals?JORAX: I always believe our team has a chance - we have a lot of games, a ton of bonuses, and some preloads as well.Ow Nitram: We will see. We’ve been doing gamerscore for the last 12 years, there’s no substitute for experience. Yinga Garten: We'll have to see how cut-off goes for this week (I'm answering these questions on 30th November so hope I don't look silly afterwards). I was projecting cut-off for semi-finals to reach 30-35k but I'm definitely expecting a final cut-off to the higher end of that prediction now as more people have proved competitive than I thought. I'm confident of putting on a good amount of score in the finals if I make it but the higher the cut-off goes in the semis the less I'll be able to put on for the finals.

5) How have you prepared for the finals? Did you book time off work... save specific games... preload... invest in a time machine?JORAX: I had some 'use it or lose it' vacation time to use in December, so I did move a few days of that around for GTASC. I also bought a ton of ACA Neogeo titles along with other quick games.Ow Nitram: No, everyone is working, it’s business as usual for the team. Would love to have more time though :( Trying to cut on the sleep as much as possible to still be functional. Can’t stay with mom and dad 24/7 and playing (not the kind of life I’d like anyway). We had a bit of emergency preload but I won’t bring back this debate. Yinga Garten: I've tried to make sure I have a few less social commitments than I usually do for these last two weeks but my general working schedule will remain the same. I'll be using a mixture of quick points (Minecraft etc.), preloads and the rest of my easy completions I've been saving which have been estimated to be less than 3 hours on this site. The hard work for me has been done in the past two/three months preparing for this moment, now its just to see how it all falls in place.

6) Do you have any desire of finding a friend to compete with next year?JORAX: Sadly no, its been a really fun contest but I don't think I'll have the energy to do this again anytime soon. Also my wife has been extremely patient with me gaming more than usual (and in odd ways such as hogging all the screens with simultaneous 360/X1/PC playthroughs of Telltale games). Ow Nitram: PM me if you have a trizillion of preload in FIREPOWER.Yinga Garten: I haven't really thought much about next year really. I'll be taking a break for a bit once the competition is over then do a few games I want to play over the Christmas holidays at my own pace. I'll make a decision then as GTASC is such a massive time sink which I'm not sure I can fully commit to again.

7) Is there anything else you'd like to add?JORAX: Corn chips are no place for a mighty warrior!Ow Nitram: A final thanks to you planting for hosting the contest, it made me play like never before. I would like to take a last opportunity for a few “thank you”. Thank you to my teammates, you are amazing people, I’ve been playing and competing with Deathisland and K4rnage for years, it’s always a pleasure to be with you guys. I’ve known Momie since 2006 but I’m really happy we get closer with the contest. Also really happy to have meet JORAX, such a nice guy. Speaking in term of pure scoring skill, I was with the best of the best. Thanks for everyone rooting for us during the contest, your support is really appreciated. Thanks Stagger for your entertaining posts during the contest, made the contest more enjoyable, sometimes I was discouraged by people attitude, it’s not like your life is riding on this contest but whatever…seems a lot of teams had “that guy”.

Special thanks outside of GTASC now. Many thanks to my girlfriend for helping me with the Japanese games at the beginning of the year when I was too lazy to translate stuff and having endured me and my garbage games over the year, I want to play Mario Odyssey too, it’s coming soon enough. Thanks to my longtime friend King of Fool who were like the 6th member of the team with all the help he did, can’t wait to go back on coop stuff and Overwatch with you, you have no idea how much I miss that during the year. Thanks to xSup3rM4ri0x for being here over the year too.

Farewell GTASC 2017Yinga Garten: Congratulations to the 18 that got to the semi-final week of solo, amazing commitment as the going has gotten really tough at times. Hopefully I'll be in the final week but the upcoming bonus bonanza will surely take out one unexpected person so I won't rest on my laurels. Shout out to my team, the Original BackLoggers, for defying expectations to reach the semi-final week. I don't really have much investment in the team side now but I'm hoping that Team UHH prevail. That's all, been fun and hopefully I'll see you all in future competitions or gaming sessions on this wonderful site.

TOP 3 INDIVIDUALS:cyberber with 41,784 TA, 31,720 GS and a total of 578 achievements.DeAtHisLaNd with 40,924 TA, 23,460 GS and a total of 508 achievements.Zalexzy with 40,865 TA, 22,266 GS and a total of 596 achievements.

TOP 3 INDIVIDUALS:ROGUE 1992 with 41,465 TA, 31,869 GS and a total of 523 achievements.DeAtHisLaNd with 40,924 TA, 23,460 GS and a total of 508 achievements.JJBDude48 with 39,828 TA, 29,810 GS and a total of 517 achievements.

Posted by planting42 on 06 December 17 at 05:47
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Nov29

GTASC 2017 - Period 46

Hello agents. Your mission should you accept it is to survive the Semi final round currently underway and continue to dominate in the finals. This message will self destruct in 30 seconds so you better read fast!

Thankfully, your device won't actually explode - my words don't have THAT kind of power. What we will include in here are a recap of the Games with Gold program, UHH3, GTASC stats and of course a few words of wisdom from our Overachievers of Period 45.

Don't forget to register for the Twelve Days of Christmas Challenge if you haven't already. Each day for 12 days starting December 1st a new challenge will be revealed. Use all the achievements at your disposal to accomplish each task and you'll earn the new Community Challenge badge (or increment the one you got for completing the Alphabet Challenge.) Never fear, although the number 12 features prominently in this event (thanks to a particular song of course...) you have the entire month to complete all 12 challenges. You must complete them in order and all achievements must be timestamped.

1) Did you play anything you'd recommend this past period?Danno Omen: Zoo Tycoon was fun until it glitched on me. But if you've played the earlier versions its basically the same. 911 Operator was also pretty cool.oxy71: Dying reborn was freaky but a nice changeSnipedByAGir1: I actually had an absolute blast playing Van Helsing with my buddy Balarush. Was a nice getaway from playing all of these garbage games.Stevano61 PB2A: Played more of the Call of Duty: WWII campaign! So good to go back to that era in time after the developers force feeding the future the last few years. Also a Wheel of Fortune fan, so picked that up in the Black Friday early sale, but disappointed they don't have Pat & Vanna considering they have the license for the show...

2) Are you ready to make a run at the finals?Danno Omen: I sure hope so. The goal from the get go has been to win this year so we think we have what it takes to at the very least make finals.oxy71: Oh heck yeahSnipedByAGir1: I'm super ready. Can't wait for this to be over .Stevano61 PB2A:

3) If you could only recommend one game people to play, what would it be?Danno Omen: Call of Duty Modern Warfare is probably my favorite game of all time so i guess id say that.oxy71: halo 5SnipedByAGir1: I'm so torn because I love Mass Effect so much, but Dragon Age: Inquisition was the bomb.Stevano61 PB2A: Halo 3.

4) What (if any) was your favorite bonus this year. What about it made you choose it?Danno Omen: Ill say double ratio just because i enjoy the challenge that most ratio achievements bring. This years GTASC has really hurt my ratio so i wanna build it back up some after this is over.oxy71: I actually like the one where you had to rank alphabetically per gamertag. SnipedByAGir1: I feel like we already answered this one . I liked all the bonuses. They keep it interesting and the points make them all worth it.Stevano61 PB2A: I think our team has previously answered this.... I'll just refer to that.* Its so hard finding what I asked teams that constantly win Overachiever

5) If you could change anything regarding the GTASC format, what would it be?Danno Omen: Things could always be tweaked some. I think it would do good to have a just for fun side but for the first year everyone is in the main draw. The top X amount of teams stay in the main draw and the bottom X go into a JFF comp the next year. And every year a certain amount of teams get bumped up or down depending on how they did the following year. It keeps the balance and prevents a great but not top contender joining the JFF league and crushing it and it lets the truly competitive teams fight it out and the teams that just wanna boost there score some a chance to compete and win something else.oxy71: No, this is my last year for a bitSnipedByAGir1: Ugh the cutoff time. I seriously can't wait to sleep in soon. I remember a couple of years ago the cutoff was during us East Coasters evening. That was so awesome. Guess the early cutoff helps me get on with my day though.Stevano61 PB2A: Tough to say....I think I'd rather see bonuses decreased in value, and have every single badge be stackable, not just select ones. That's just being picky though.* We did have a B-Side many years ago but it was set up differently than Danno suggested. I'll have to talk to Rich to see what he thinks. Cutoff won't be changing in 2018, sorry. I'll see if we can mix it up again for '19. I tried messing with bonus values a few times and it seemed that folks weren't going for them when they were worth less. All badges will stack next year.

6) Do you have anything you'd like to add?Danno Omen: Good job on everyone making it here. Only 3 weeks to go (Well 2 once you read this). Its going to be a stressful couple of weeks but i think to all of us,its pretty worth it or we wouldnt still be here.oxy71: Nope, glad to be in the semi-finals. Hopefully we can make the finals again.SnipedByAGir1: So happy this is almost over. Congrats to all of us that are left. We all definitely need Gamer's Anon when this is over . Good luck everyone and thank again Planting for organizing all of this!Stevano61 PB2A:

TOP 3 INDIVIDUALS:Yinga Garten with 14,292 TA, 10,144 GS and a total of 158 achievements.Weredog51 with 12,686 TA, 10,434 GS and a total of 200 achievements.BemusedBox with 11,329 TA, 7,955 GS and a total of 157 achievements.

TOP 3 INDIVIDUALS:Mephisto4thewin with 20,103 TA, 14,980 GS and a total of 278 achievements.WolfheartSpell with 19,224 TA, 14,600 GS and a total of 303 achievements.Gamerscore Gods with 16,606 TA, 9,710 GS and a total of 269 achievements.

The Semi-finals are upon us. Only 5 teams and 10 Individuals will make it into the finals. Only 1 Team and Individual will be the winner. Who has what it takes to take home this year's championship? We've already seen some impressive bonus unloads as teams jockey to stay alive. The field will certainly change quite a bit in the upcoming days.

Posted by planting42 on 29 November 17 at 23:13
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